


Juno Steel and the Eye of London

by cy_owns_this_whorehouse



Series: Hello, Juno Here. What the Fuck is Going On. [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Penumbra Podcast, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, M/M, Multiple Crossovers, No beta we kayak like Tim, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Spoilers, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 4, Statement Hunger (The Magnus Archives), jon is a bit fucked, juno is traumatized
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:02:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cy_owns_this_whorehouse/pseuds/cy_owns_this_whorehouse
Summary: Juno is sent back in time yet again, this time to 2017 London where an apocalypse is looming and gays run rampant in the streets...
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Melanie King & Alice "Daisy" Tonner & Jonathan Sims, Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Cecil Palmer & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Hello, Juno Here. What the Fuck is Going On. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171886
Comments: 31
Kudos: 42





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> the second addition to the series who's excited?? me that's for sure. thank you all for reading the last installment it was incredible to see how many people liked it! I hope you like this one as well :)

At first, Peter thought it was a knife that was running down his cheek, but it was too… soft, somehow. Like… skin. It was a second later when he realized it was someone’s finger, tipped with a sharp nail, that was running down his face and down the line of his throat. 

Peter’s eyes snapped open and there was a knife in his hand a second later, one he always had strapped to his forearm, poised to strike. 

There was nothing there. 

Pain wracked his body a second later, flaring up in his stomach, and he fell back onto the bed with a cry, dropping the knife. He vaguely remembered being stabbed, with Juno above him and a lot of bright lights and too many people, but not much else. 

The door opened, and the knife was back in Peter’s hand, and the man in the doorway raised his hands to show that he meant no harm. Peter narrowed his eyes, taking in everything about him. He was tall, rail-thin, and violently ginger. There was a third eye in the middle of his forehead, and his eyes were full of lavender static. 

“Who are you?” Peter asked, his voice as carefully schooled into something resembling his normal icy cheer as he could manage. The man slowly lowered his hands, the static in his eyes swirling in agitation. 

“My name is Cecil,” he said in a voice that was like drowning in the ocean, impossibly deep and dark. Peter felt his breath catch in his throat. “Have you seen Juno?”   
  


Peter’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want with him?”

Cecil shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in a few hours. He was supposed to come find me when he was done with a shower, and I assumed he was in here with you, but--”

Cecil stopped short, staring at the edge of the bed. Peter waited for him to speak again, but he just inhaled sharply and suddenly looked very, very angry. 

“...Mind explaining why you’re looking at my bed like you want to set it on fire?” Peter asked delicately, and Cecil’s eyes narrowed. 

“The Spiral has stepped where it doesn’t belong,” Cecil said, his voice full of venom. “It has entered  _ my _ domain and taken what does not belong to it.”

Peter had no answer to that, but a line on his face suddenly felt ice cold, the place where he’d felt an unknown fingertip running down his skin. A deep shudder ran down his spine. “I’m sorry?” he said, weakly. 

Cecil looked up at him, his ears were red with fury. “Peter, my dear, we need to have a chat.”

\--------------------

Juno squirmed under all the eyes staring at him. Basira had returned with a short, thin blonde woman named Daisy, and a woman with blue hair and a permanent scowl called Melanie. They looked as if they were waiting for Jon to do…  _ something _ , and Juno was getting tired of it. 

“So is anyone going to tell me what I’m doing here or all you all going to keep staring at me like I’ve got something on my face?” he said dryly, knowing full well that that could actually be the reason they were staring at him, what with the heavy scarring under his eyepatch and the one across his nose and the one on his mouth and you know what, every other one that marred his face. 

“Nice scar,” the blonde one, Daisy, commented. She herself had a massive scar running down the side of her face, and Juno managed a smile.

“Right back at ya.”

“It’s not Helen?” Jon interrupted suddenly, his green eyes sharp on Juno’s face. Juno had to try very hard not to squirm. 

“What?”

“Your version of the Distortion. It’s no longer Helen?”

Juno’s eye narrowed. “...No. Its name is Salem. How did you know that?”

Jon shifted uncomfortably. “I...have my ways.”

All three women scoffed, and Juno raised an eyebrow. “You’re like Cecil.”

“Who?”

“My friend Cecil. Oh, what did he call it…” Juno trailed off, thinking, then snapped his fingers. “Right.  _ Knowing. _ He knows… uh, everything. He  _ reads _ people.”   
  


Jon sank back against the desk he was leaning against, looking absolutely shellshocked. “There’s…” he paused, taking a second to collect his thoughts. “So, what you’re saying is… there’s another Avatar of the Eye.”

Juno shrugged. “I have no idea what that means, but if you mean that there’s another guy who knows everything about everyone with a look, then yeah, sure.”

No one looked pleased about this, but the woman with the blue hair, Melanie, looked absolutely livid. 

“One is fucking bad enough, now there are  _ two? _ ” she snapped, and Jon winced. “I’m in hell. I’m literally in fucking hell.” Then she took the cue and left, slamming the door so hard behind her that a picture fell off the wall and shattered. Neither Jon nor the two women flinched. That was some fucking trauma they’d been through to not notice the glass on their shoes, Juno thought to himself, suddenly a little worried about the situation he’d found himself in. 

Jon fidgeted, and Juno turned to look back at him. Basira glared at Jon. “Don’t you fucking dare,” she hissed, and Jon whined softly. He sounded... _ hungry _ , and there was a desperate look in his eyes that Juno really didn’t like.

“I won’t,” he said in a petulant tone, crossing his arms. Basira didn’t look like she believed him, but she let it drop. 

“Don’t...what?” Juno asked, curious in spite of himself. Jon shuffled his feet restlessly. 

“The other Avatar...what’s he like?” Jon countered, and Juno was abruptly reminded of the card game Peter had played in the Oasis, trading questions like poker chips. 

“You got a deck of cards?” slipped out of Juno’s mouth unbidden, and Jon squinted. 

“What on earth for?”

“Just a fun game. For fun.”

“Erm.”

Basira sighed. “If you two are going to play games, then we have work to do, you know, stopping Elias,” she said dryly. “Come on, Daisy.”

The two women left with a crunching of glass, closing the door behind them in a much more gentle manner. 

“I think there may be a deck in the desk, here,” Jon said faintly, getting up and rummaging around in the drawer. When he found one, he came back over and split the deck without even asking Juno what he planned to do with it, which Juno assumed was because of his powers. 

“How do we play?”

Juno shuffled his side of the deck idly in his hands as he explained the rules. “We ask each other a question, draw a card, and whoever has the lower card has to answer their question.”

Jon looked bemused as to why they were playing this game, but Juno would not be swayed. “...Alright.”

“So. What did Basira mean?”

“What’s the other Avatar like?”

They drew. Jon pulled a 7, Juno an Ace. 

“He’s...nice. I think he wants to adopt me, really. He uses his powers as a radio host, has a husband, a son, and a nasty little bastard of a cat. He’s also immortal, and…” Juno stopped, suddenly remembering something Cecil had said. “And I think he knew you. At least, future you.”

“Oh.”

Juno cleared his throat. “What did Basira mean?”

“Why were you shocked by the year?”

Juno had a 4, Jon a king. 

“I’m from at least 500 years into the future. 2589, to be exact. What did Basira mean?”

“Is the future… happy?”

This time, Juno came out on top with a jack. 

“I…” Jon really didn’t look happy about answering this question. “I… well, I feed off of statements, if you will. I feed off of the fear they generate. I… erm, haven’t fed in quite a while, and I’m getting a bit wobbly,” he murmured, not meeting Juno’s eyes. “It’s a side effect of the Eye. I can’t really control it.”

“So you wanted to… what, exactly?”

Jon exhaled shakily. “Take your statement. Something supernatural or particularly frightening that’s happened to you, and then I’d...feed off of that. It wouldn’t be pleasant. You’d relive the events in your nightmares for months afterward, and I’d have the same ones, reliving them right alongside you.”

Juno snorted. “I’m gonna be honest with you, Jon, I haven’t stopped having nightmares about my childhood for almost forty years, and they sure as hell can’t get any goddamn worse.”

Jon paused, his fingers idly fidgeting with the cards he was holding. “What…” he cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… if your powers work better when you aren’t hungry, and you’re the only one who really knows how to get me home, being all-seeing and all, then we’d be better off if you were fed, right?”

Jon was quiet for a moment. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

Juno settled further into the chair he was in, nodding firmly if more to himself. “Alright then, Jon, do your worst,” he said, a lot more confident than he felt. 

Jon sighed, then nodded. “Alright,” he said quietly, then his eyes began to glow. A ringing filled the air, like static after a bombshell had been dropped, and a wreath of bright green eyes circled Jon’s head like Cecil’s when he Knew. 

“Statement of Juno Steel, regarding certain events in his childhood. Statement taken directly from subject, 27th August 2018. Statement begins.”

Jon turned those poison green eyes onto Juno, and Juno felt sick, a slow sense of horror and dread filling his stomach until he nearly lost it right then and there on the glass-strewn carpet.

“So, Juno. Tell me about Benzaiten Steel.”


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno gives a statement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh idk why this chapter was so hard to write?? it still doesn't feel quite right but ugh life be crazy man I'm spiralling hard and I'm trying to get back on my feet

Juno didn't know when he started crying. As soon as he'd begun talking he'd felt sicker and sicker, the words forcing themselves in a choking parade out of his throat, spilling into the air, until he was very certain that he'd actually be sick there on the floor. But he wasn't, and instead, the sickness just washed out of him in a flood of tears, pouring down his face and splashing onto his shaking hands.

He wanted to stop, by  _ god _ he wanted to stop, but he couldn’t. Every time he closed his mouth bile rose in his throat and his chest closed off and he'd spill out even more words before they choked him. 

Even when he was done with Benten, Jon just  _ didn't stop.  _ He said something that Juno couldn't quite make out over the ringing in his ears and what poured out of Juno's mouth like oil, slick and filthy, was everything else he was fucking ashamed of. 

It was everyone he'd hurt, everyone he had lost, everything he'd thrown away. It was losing Sasha's sister, fucking up Diamond, hunting Rita, leaving Peter. Everything twisted he tried to keep shoved down deep in his soul, left there to rot for good, Jon pulled out like tape from a recorder with merciless hands. 

Respite seemed long coming, the minutes dragging like hours and days and salt-drenched years-- but eventually, Juno felt a small snap in the back of his head, like a release, and he immediately slumped forward in his chair, finally allowed to rest. 

Jon didn't say a word as Juno sat there, crumpled over himself, tears streaming out of his one good eye until the knee of Carlos's black sweatpants were soaked with salt. There was an odd clattering noise that faded in and out through the ringing fog in his brain that he didn’t recognize, and didn’t realize that it was the chair, shaking against the floor with how hard he was trembling. 

"I'm sorry." 

Jon's voice cut through the haze and with an abrupt jolt that Jon likely has something to do with, Juno's mind was launched back into his body and he was...well, more or less thinking clearly, even if he was still shivering, shell-shocked and unable to stop crying. 

But Jon sounded just about as bad as Juno felt. He sounded completely exhausted, ragged around the edges, and very, very quiet. 

"I did try to warn you," he continued, lifting his hands to rub at his arms through the sweater that Juno was only just now realizing was much too big for him. There was also a large scar on Jon's hand, pink and harsh against the dark skin like it hadn't yet healed all the way. "It's going to hurt like this for...for a while. I'm truly very sorry." 

_ It’s fine,  _ Juno wanted to say, but what came out was a sob-strangled “ _ why?”  _ instead. Jon’s thin hands tightened on his biceps. 

“I already told you,” he said, like he wanted to be exasperated but he was too tired to be so and didn’t want to make the situation worse. “I feed off of it. I’ll starve to death without fear, and you...had an abundance,” he muttered, looking away so he didn’t have to meet Juno’s eye. 

“Oh,” Juno said, and he laughed a little around the bone-aching sobs in his throat, rough and utterly mirthless. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

There was silence for a long while while Juno tried to collect himself, and Jon busied himself by avoiding Juno’s gaze and re-rolling up the sleeves of that too big sweater. Or,  _ jumper,  _ as Peter called it, which made absolutely no sense to Juno. Thinking about Peter made...well,  _ everything  _ hurt, hurt even worse than talking to Jon, because Juno was trapped here and Peter was hurt and alone with that thing and unable to protect himself and Juno didn’t even realize he was hyperventilating again until someone took him by the shoulder and he lurched. 

“Juno,” Jon said, his green eyes full of hurt. “Breathe,  _ please, _ it will be okay,” he said, but the words seemed to stick in his throat as if he wasn’t the one who used to say those words. Nevertheless the contact and words were good for Juno, and he sucked in a long, ragged breath, closing his eye until his breathing returned somewhat to normal again and the tears weren’t as wracking as before. 

He lifted a hand to scrub the remnants of tears away from his cheek, and Jon stepped back, looking nervous. “Erm...would you like a cup of tea? I’m not really very good at it, Martin usually--” Jon seemed to choke on his words, just a bit, and shook his head. “Er. Either way, I can make you some if you’d like.”

“I wouldn’t say no to something stronger,” Juno murmured, now rubbing a hand down his arm to try and stop the shaking, looking like a husk of a lady who’d seen way too much to be okay. Jon shook his head. 

“I’m afraid I don’t drink. And besides, alcohol isn’t allowed on company property,” he muttered, in a voice that sounded like it probably didn’t matter anymore given that so many rules had already been broken. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Jon left the room and Juno collapsed just slightly into his chair, the sound of a whimper, then a sob, then a completely animalistic sound of anguish finally ripping out of his throat now that he had no one to listen to him.    
  
\----------------

Jon sighed, leaning against the counter and pushing his glasses up to his forehead as he rubbed his eyes. He was waiting for the kettle to boil, and the guilt was starting to set in. 

No one had ever reacted as violently to a statement as Juno just had. Not even Melanie. But then again, the things that the lady sitting in his office had been through were so violently intense that even Jon, who had seen monsters and demons and stared death himself in his face, had wanted it to stop. No human should ever have to go through so much suffering. 

God, he wished Martin were here. Martin was so good at knowing just what people needed to feel better after something like this, he’d always made sure statement givers had a cup of tea before they left, always tried to make sure that Jon took care of himself even when he was being an absolute asshole. 

But Martin was avoiding them for some god forsaken reason that Jon didn’t really understand, and was too cowardly to Know. It was something to do with Peter Lukas, he knew that, but he didn’t want to delve any further for fear of compromising him in some way. 

The whistle of the kettle coming to a boil startled him, he jumped nearly a foot in the air and had to take a moment, hand pressed to his chest and glasses askew before his heart rate had calmed down enough to take the kettle off the stove and pour the water into a cup with several tea bags in it. 

Jon took the cup in hand, careful to avoid the scar because it was still very sensitive, and thought for a moment. Juno had asked for something stronger, and while Jon didn’t really believe in that, he privately agreed that Juno could probably use it. He knew one place that was sure to have alcohol, even if the office had been vacant for over a year now. 

He headed back down the hall, the mug clutched in his hand, and with slightly shaky fingers he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked Tim and Sasha’s office. 

It was still cluttered, and dusty, which was to be expected because a lot of things had happened after Tim’s death that had left them with no time to clean or clear it out or anything of the sort. Jon felt his breath shudder in his chest. 

“Get it together,” he muttered to himself, making a beeline towards Tim’s abandoned desk, steadfastly ignoring the dusty picture frame that held a picture of the four of them when they’d just started working. Instead he opened a bottom drawer, rummaged in the back, and pulled out the bottle of rosé that Tim kept under there for special occasions (read: whenever he and Sasha could pull a fast one over Elias and get drunk at work for no reason other than to be funny). It wasn’t particularly strong, but he didn’t think that Juno would really mind all that much. 

When he reentered his office Juno sat up like a shot, scrubbing at his face and trying very hard not to make it look like he’d been crying again. “Hey,” he said in a raspy voice.

“Hey,” Jon responded quietly, setting the bottle of wine down on his desk and handing Juno the cup of tea, who took it gratefully and wrapped his shaking hands around the warm ceramic. 

“Thanks,” he whispered, and Jon nodded, sitting on the edge of his desk and crossing his arms. He was quiet as Juno sipped his tea and didn’t make a face, which either meant that Jon had finally gotten it right or he was very good at schooling his expressions, which Jon knew wasn’t true so it must be the former and he felt oddly pleased by it. 

“So, magic man, use your powers,” Juno said suddenly, fixing Jon with his one eye that held a petulant look. “How do I get home?”

Jon took a deep breath, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he whispered, and Juno stared. 

“The hell do you mean, ‘I don’t know’?” Juno snapped, and Jon winced.    
  


“I mean I don’t know. I suppose Helen could do something about it, but she is not the same creature as your Salem,” Jon explained. “I can only tell you things that are happening right now, not in the future, so I have no idea what Salem is doing, but I could talk to Helen.”

“Oh,” Juno muttered, settling back down. His leg was bouncing anxiously, and he stared into his mug like it held the answers that Jon didn’t have. “Can you talk to her, then?”

Jon sighed. “I can certainly try, but there is no guarantee she will listen. She’s the one that dropped you into Night Vale in the first place, correct?”

Juno nodded, he didn’t look phased at the way Jon knew this. 

“Then either she likes you enough to mess with you, or she doesn’t like you at all and might let you out at the bottom of an ocean, or keep you in her halls forever,” Jon said tiredly, shrugging. “I don’t want you to take that risk. She rarely lets people go twice.”

“I can’t be stuck here!” Juno said, his voice rising in panic. Jon winced.    
  


“I’m sorry, I’ll talk to her, but I’m just  _ saying  _ that being stuck here is preferable to wandering in her halls until you starve to death, alright?” Jon said back, an edge in his voice as if he was trying to explain something to a rather dim child. 

Juno glared at him but Jon could see fear in those eyes, and he knew that it was because he was separated from his Peter, from his family, hundreds of years in the past, and he was afraid. Very afraid. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon said again, softer, more forlorn. “But it’s best if you stay here, for now.”

Juno sunk back into his seat, curled his legs up underneath him, and resigned. “Fine. It seems I have no other choice.” 

“No,” Jon agreed heavily, shaking his head. “You don’t.” He hesitated, shifting from foot to foot, then stood up straight. “I’ll have Basira come and collect you in a few hours, alright? I...get the sense that you need to be alone.”

Juno didn’t say anything, so Jon left him, closing the door behind him with a sigh. 

“Besides,” he muttered to himself. “I have work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the jumper jon is wearing belongs to martin. in case you wondered <3

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! the more comments I get the more fuel I have. we're going to have a good time here, together in the apocalypse.


End file.
